NOW CLOSED Please come and tell Cathedral City's Chedds your best winter-afternoon child-wrangling tips – you could win a Nintendo DS

[NewGirlHelenMumsnet]

Hello. We've been asked by the folks at Chedds, the new kids' cheese snacking brand from Cathedral City, for your top tips on keeping your DCs happy, active and entertained as the colder, darker, altogether-grimmer winter weather sets in.

Do you hunker down inside and get creative with glue and paint? Do you dig out the board games or let them at the computer? Or perhaps you wrap everyone up in weatherproofs and get 'em outside, no matter what? Do you plan ahead for windy/rainy weekend diversions? Or do you just go with the (blustery, increasingly sodden) flow?

Do please post your finest tips here. Everyone who does so will be entered into a prize draw to win a Nintendo DS for their family.

Please note that some of the tips posted here will be published on the Chedds pages on Mumsnet in due course.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

DS2 found my dictaphone yesterday and spent ages playing with it. I had to interview him, he had to interview me etc.

Dressing up and being hairdressers..... baking pizza with choc spread and bananas...... painting...... reading books....... sewing clothes for toys...... dens....... tidy up races(!)...... play baths........ organizing the garden patch for spring........ making cards/ decorations/mess....... dvds on sunday evenings with tea under a duvet.

Cosy up in the loft which is our den, watching DVDs, listening to all manner of music, tucking into snacks, and singing along to all the musicals - fab particularly when we've got our heater on!

I fill the kitchen sink up with bubble and let her make'bubble cakes'!

We opt for welly walks, fort building, painting (be that paper, hands, faces.... whatever is favoured), duplo. However, my favourite has to be cuddled up on our over cushioned sofa reading stories with silly voices.

DS and I like to make fun bread - hedgehogs, plaits, fish, then eat them with ds's favourite 'whizzy' soup. This is any veg he wishes to put together, which he sticks in the food processor and whizzes up - it seems to work out, and doesn't need precise cutting.

Glue and glitter is a favourite.
Baking, icing biscuits or making sweets.
Science experiments- my toddler DD is very exciting about making 'explosions' with vinegar, bicarb of soda and a little glitter and food colouring.
For a toddler, go on a 'bear hunt', different actions in each room (e.g kitchen- crossing the river) and finish by finding the bear under the duvet.
And wellie boots and puddle splashing whenever there's really heavy rain.

Once it starts to get dark, get wrapped up and have a walk, even if it's just round the block. Small children can usually be "encouraged" with a torch!

We do try to get out anyway even if the weather is not great, have waterprrof trousers etc and dc really like to go for walks in the dark.
Baking.
Making things.
Dens.
Lego.
Draw really big pictures on lining paper or drawing around dc.
Trips to musuems etc.
Tv/films!
Wii fit competitions.

Collecting lovely, freshly fallen, brightly coloured leaves and using them to make a collage. The colours look amazing and least year we made a really large map of the UK. Kept us busy for ages.

DVDs under a duvet on the sofa with hot chocolate and wine

Sometimes we do a sort of 'dinner party game' which involves the DCwriting out menus,choosing music to play, laying the table all 'fancy' (in their minds, anyway), and picking our clothes for us (DP is a builder so they take great delight in making him wear his one and only suit). Is a good way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon, anyway

We have a family film, when we all snuggle up on the sofa under a kingsize duvet (except the cat, he goes on the top- too many claws!) with a bowl of popcorn and a box of malteasers.

When it is frosty in the mornings we wrap up warm and make shoeprint pictures on the frosty grass. Then the boys play dragons, taking it in turn to be the roaring, steamy dragon chasing his brother round the garden.

Walks/trips to the park whatever the weather, sledging if its been snowing.

Once they've had fresh air, inside activities are much more chilled.

Lego, Wii fit, cinema trips, movies, inviting friends round to play.

LittlePushka's Little List to Make Mid-winter a Little Less Bleak:

1. Hats which have wooly/furry cheek flaps AND which fasten under chin.

1. Salopettes - to stop snow getting down kids pants the first time they topple over in it.

1. Freeze homemade soup - it warms up everything in minutes when its dark cold and late.

1. Tupperware box in car with individual flapjacks and some brand new books they have never seen for delays/breakdowns.

1. Some dispensible teatowels/muslins to put under your wheels when you are ice bound.

1. Roll of cheap wallpaper/lining paper for children/adults to lie on and get drawn on and to decorate life size pictures of the family.

1. Tights for boys (as well as girls) under snow gear,...it may not be cool, ...but that's sort of the point!

8.Glue and glitter as soon as the clocks go back - homemade christmas cards/tree decs take ages to dry!! Oh, and put the glitter in an empty "Hundreds and thousands" type shaker...saves the glitter and the carpet.

9 Buy them torches and go off on a "midnight walk" (at about 6.30pm, obviously ) with plenty friends and plenty soup in your flask for supper.

10. Keep back a gift for every day that there is between Christmas and start of term for them to open - (and if you hide it the night before when they are in bed they will get a little treasure hunt out of it too)

Enjoy!

Cooking/baking together.

Visiting people you haven't caught up with for a while - arranging to pop round for tea and cake can kill a couple of hours, kids can bring a bag of their favourite toys.

Film watching together under a duvet on the sofa with some fun snacks; DS has his own list on lovefilm and enjoys getting discs through the post.

Art stuff - cheap and easy. We sit down and design monsters together or draw cartoons for each other. Also lately got very into Fimo (clay you shape and bake - not so cheap when they want to do it every night, though).

Country walks - as long as it's not pelting rain they can be fun, even more so if you collect stuff eg cool rocks on the beach.

Cinema, expensive but fab for wet gloomy days.

Libraries (if there are any left where you are).

Internet together - there are some cute free game site around we've had fun on snowy days playing mindless nonsense together. Or discover something more interesting like Google Earth. Or spend a bit of time googling things that dc have been asking about or interested in lately.

If it's a school day and I also have after school mindees then we do a lot of craft stuff, especially in teh run up to Christmas. We collect leaves and twigs and conkers and make collages.
At weekends we have duvet/film days. We get duvets, popcorn, soft drinks (wine for adults) and watch a dvd. We take it turns to choose.

We also have a very energetic 3 year old dog so wrap up warma dn take him out

We have themed weeks where activities centre round a theme. This week predictably it's Halloween so we have done craft activities like making skeletons, pumpkin bunting, pipe cleaner spiders, ghosts on strings. We have baked and iced pumpkin shaped biscuits, made dead finger biscuits, mummy pizzas and salty bones. We'll watch a creepy dvd, make costumes and decorate the house and on the day itself have a little party with games.
Next week it will be bonfire and firework themed but we do whatever takes my fancy so have done Ancient Egypt, WW2, Pirates,Dogs,France, Italy and theme activities round the subject.
We go to the Library to get books on the subject and the craft shop and supermarket to get supplies on a Saturday ready for the week ahead.

DD loves puddles, to the wetter the better in her mind. We try to just get out and enjoy the weather as much as possible, and go for a nice walk to take in the changing scenery and get some fresh air.

We also do a bit of basic baking or art fun, like decorating biscuits, or drawing and making weird animals. But getting out for a walk and a splash in the puddles is always DD's first choice.

I challenge the DCs to clean stuff in the house, then go round aggie Mckenzie stylee judging their efforts.
We make up mad stories and add crazy details. The story usually ends when we can't breathe for laughing
On dark evenings we get out the telescope and stargaze. On a clear night we look for orion's sword (which is a whole galaxy!)

Outside no-matter-what seems to be my DC's natural inclination - my only involvement being to try and fail to get them to put on suitable clothes. Having lived in flip-flops all summer, they will switch to wellies soon (I hope!).

Failing that, since they both (and most other DC we buy presents for) have autumn birthdays, there are usually plenty of cardboard boxes kicking around - with old clothes and a large box of felt tips, they will quite happily spend a couple of hourse destroying boxes creating a great work of art or two while I ignore them - and apparently sweeping up the resulting mess is also fun, as long as no-one is too tired or hungry by then.

DS favourite summer game is a cement mixing tray full of compost and some trucks to drive through it. In the summer, we scale the game down and bring it inside using a tray and some porridge oats, it keeps him amused for ages.

We do the occasional walk or bike rise outside but despite being Northern, I am a complete wimp when it comes to the cold so I do try to come up with a few more indoor activities - baking, play doh and painting are all popular and the resulting 'artworks' can be used as Christmas cards too :)

We walk, splashing and jumping in muddy puddles! We come home to a roaring fire, snacks and games usually! We also make things like paper lanterns and hanging bird-feeders to put in the garden. Today we have been collecting chestnuts and bringing them home to roast on the fire YUM!

We do quite a lot of stuff:
puzzles/jigsaws/crosswords/wordsearches
making towns/villages with mixture of lego, playmobil, sylvanian families and wooden train set.

dens
dvds, popcorn etc
window shopping trips to see xmas displays and lights
kite flying
biking
walks to collect interesting twigs, cones etc and make displays or collages later
but mainly we like
board games - currently playing Risk, but Cluedo and Monopoly are favourites also like things like Mancala, Solitaire, Go, Trivial Pursuit, Cranium. Countdown etc
Hama beads
Just started cross stitch and sewing cushions, bags and stuffed toys.
Wii games - Just Dance, Zumba, Mario etc
Writing and performing own shows
Playing schools, or restaurants with elaborate menus!
Baking - Brownies usually but have done a few Hummingbird Bakery cupcake recipes as well.
Playing with Heelys, sliding down stairs on cushions and pillows, making dens and generally creating havoc with my laundry and soft furnishings!
Making hot choc with marshmallows!
Making homemade sausage rolls
making costumes for halloween and other events
hmm actually we do quite a bit of stuff now that we have written it down!

And looking at previous post, just remembered the chestnut trees by school where we collect chestnuts!
[hgrin]

ooh and dressing up!

and playing badminton and making miniature gardens in summer - I love this too!